is.;8.l 555 [U-sloy. 



Nothing shows more phiinl^- tlie long standing divergence of 

 religions creeds.* 



Everything ahont it shows that the Egyptian Dead Book, or 

 l\itual, was not original, in the form known to ns, bnt a manu- 

 facture of the priests of Heliopolis, or On, the Oxford of the 

 Delta; was first employed at jSlcmphis, near the mouth of the 

 Valley; and was carried gradually up to Thebes, Nubia, and 

 into Ethiopia. Lepsius shows how it grew gradually to its pres- 

 ent size and form, b}- the edliion of gloss upon gloss ; which, 

 like the branches of a I'anyan tree, rooted themselves in the 

 original soil, and having branches of their own, came to form 

 all together a matted mass, of various ages, with a common 

 character. It takes scarcely any notice of the great Theban 

 Trinity, Amun, ]Mut and Khons. Turn (Atum) and Set, gods of 

 the Delta, Demiurge and Devil, play as prominent a part in its 

 formularies, with Osiris, Isis and Nephthys, deities of Ab3^dos 

 (between Memphis and Thebes). Thoth justifies the corpse; 

 A nubis embalms it ; llorus defends it on its perilous patli to 

 Amenti. Ptah, Athor and vnum are also mentioned ; and even 

 ;^em the phallic Amun, once. But in its most important passages, 

 the god Ra, the sun pure and simple, assumes so leading a 

 character that we must either conceive of an aboriginal sun- 

 worship established at Thebes long previous to the Amun-wor- 

 ship ; or, that sun-worship, aboriginal in the Delta on -account 

 of its Syrian population, gradually invaded and ascended the 

 Nile Yalle}^ and got mixed up in various proportions with the 

 other and equall}^ ancient African worships. 



Ou the sarcophagus of JNIentu-hotep, a noble of the Xltli 



* The figure of Set erased liy the Thebans from the Cartouche of our Menep- 

 tha's grandfather, Seli I. (Second Diaraoh of tlie XlXth dynasty), on the great 

 columns of Luxor, and the crook of Osiris cut as if coming out of the erased 

 figure's hands, is given in Plate XIV. The monarch was thus renamed Osirei I. 

 One of the earliest traces of Osiris is found in the well known legend on the 

 lid of the coffin of Men-Kaii Ra (Fourth King of the IV. dynasty, and builder of 

 the Third Pyramid of Gizeh) preserved in the British Museum. "O, Osiris, 

 King of Upper and Lower I-^gypt, immortal Mcnkaura ! Child of heaven! 

 born of Nu-t ! begotten of Seb I Thy mother Xu-t stretches over thee the 

 Abyss of heaven. She makes thee divine, annihilating thy foes, immortal 

 Menkaura!" Chapter 04, one of the most important in the Ritual, carries a 

 title purporting that it was discovered in the time of this Menehercs by 

 prince Hortutef during his visit to one of the temples at Hermopolis. Her- 

 odotus relates that Menehercs was traditionally one of the most religious of 

 kings (Rficherches, p. 65% The great horizontal cartouche seen half way up 

 theftvee of tlie column in the plate is that of Seti Meneptha. The top of the 

 feathered cap of a colossal figure of the god Atnun is seen coming out of the 

 sand which covers up almost thirty feet of the column. 



